What the Conservative movement has always known about Bush 43:

[kunsunoke]

He thinks we suck.

The money statements, from Byron York's column:

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

"What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

"Let me tell you something," the president said. "I whupped Gary Bauer's ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement."

Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement -- the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater's disastrous defeat in 1964 -- with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.

Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.

"Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say," the president said, "but I redefined the Republican Party."

And the Party has yet to recover.

Thanks for nothing, asshole.

[Yellowfin]

I'm guessing it's because so few decent people get involved in politics at a high level that there's little filtering by good people at the top. Look at California's Republican party, for example. Yes, one technically exists on paper, yet it's completely irrelevant because it's so poorly run at best. They don't really want to win, they let the Donkeys dictate the issues, they went along with district gerrymandering, they can't figure out how to be heard over all the limp wristed liberal blathering, and they don't police their own and instead have slimeballs like Meg Whitman running (likes Van Jones, ran eBay and PayPal and no doubt had a hand in their anti gun policies) for governor under their flag. Yet because the other party is run by such rabid psychos and funded by some of the most abominable people on the planet, all it that's ever asked of them is simply to not be the worst guy running. Not necessarily to win, not even to be conservative or do anything right, just fill a spot, smile and shake hands, and not be the other guy.

Yet we demand little else.